Women, Crime and Justice: Balancing the Scales E. Gunnison, F.P. Bernat and L. Goodstein. Chichester: Wiley (2017) 306pp. £75.50hb ISBN 9781118793466
Abstract
Women, Crime and Justice is an expansive teaching tool, focused on the position of women in the criminal justice system, as victims, offenders, and professional agents working within it. In addition, Gunnison, Bernat and Goodstein consider how the law impacts upon distinctly gendered issues, with women as the focus of legal social control. The textbook is accompanied by a series of online resources, accessible via the ‘instructor companion site’ of the publishers, which includes essay questions, quiz questions and PowerPoint slides for each of the book's eleven chapters. For students, the online resources feature additional engagement activities, reading and media suggestions, as well as chapter outlines and a glossary. Each chapter of the book commences with student learning outcomes, incorporates case studies and ‘special legal issues’, and closes with student activities and discussion questions. Chapter 1, ‘Foundations for understanding women and crime’, locates issues of women, crime, gender, and criminology historically, while outlining the development of the feminist movement in the United States and the progression of global feminist criminological theory. The authors highlight how ‘what we know’ about women and criminal justice has primarily been discovered over ‘the past several decades’ due to criminological focus on the crimes of men (p.2) and introduce key concepts necessary for learning in this area: differences between sex and gender; the law and its position in defining acts as criminal (p.4); the impact of laws put in place; and the necessity for intersectional accounts of gender and crime (p.5). The book is aimed at an American audience, basing discussions on the United States legal system and positioning global examples and experiences alongside the United States’ implementation of criminal justice. Ontologically, the authors position the criminal justice system as engaged in ‘a battle to reduce crime’ (p.1) and consider the text useful for students in that it will ‘greatly improve your preparation for professions in law and in the criminal justice system’ (p.2). If we do not have a full comprehension of the multifaceted reasons why women commit crime, then correctional administrators, practitioners, and policy makers may not implement policies that are needed to help women … who may be on a troubled path and to help women who are already involved in offending to stop. (p.41) This is representative of the liberal reformist lens of the text, highlighting the gendered issues of criminal justice that need reformed to produce a more effective system. Chapter 3 examines convicted women and the punishments they received, opening with a commentary on high-profile offenders, Martha Stewart and Tonya Harding, who are held as exemplars throughout the chapter, using the case study of Malala Yousafzai to highlight the culturally-constructed nature of crime and punishment that women experience. Middle Eastern countries are held up as defining certain behaviours of women and girls as criminal, in comparison with the United States (p.52). The chapter analyses gender sentencing, highlighting the ‘chivalry thesis’ as the reason that more men than women are sentenced to prison. However, this conception fails to recognise the disproportionate hyperincarceration of women in recent decades, or parallel explanations of sentencing rooted in women's ‘double deviance’ in the eyes of criminal justice agents. The history of women's imprisonment in the United States is discussed, alongside an examination of the types of women imprisoned, with a welcome emphasis on the disproportionate incarceration of African American women, and the impact of the ‘war on drugs’ on this process (p.56). Also covered in the chapter are the conditions and processes experienced by women in prison, particularly with regards to health care provision, and how that manifests for mothers and transgender women (pp.65–6). Chapter 4 moves on to other conceptions of women and criminal justice, exploring the exertion of legal control over women's bodies and reproductive systems, from a macro level, through the criminalisation of abortion and the infliction of involuntary sterilisation, to the micro level of physical control of women prisoners, shackled as they give birth. Via its exploration of ‘the nexus of women's reproductive lives and legal control’ by systems which ‘punish, coerce, or restrict the behaviour of women’, the chapter highlights how ‘imposing legal constraints on women simply by virtue of their role as child-bearers’ serves to target specific minority and disadvantaged groups of women (pp.83–4). In Chapters 5, 6, and 7, the authors address the victimisation of women, through sexual abuse, domestic abuse, and technologically-enabled cyberbullying and harassment. Chapter 5 provides an examination of the processes and problems of definition and prosecution of rape, as well as measurements of the prevalence of sexual victimisation, and the aftermath of rapes for victims. The chapter explores rape through multiple mediums: legislation and policy, micro- and macro-orientated theoretical and societal constructs of rape, as well as survivor poetry, providing a number of ways for students to consider the topic, and concludes with a consideration of how to prevent sexual violence (p.143). Student engagement activities include creating a ‘bystander intervention model’ for universities, considering the pros and cons of reporting sexual assault to criminal justice agents, and discussing the prevalence and manifestation of ‘rape culture’ (p.146). Chapter 6, in examination of domestic violence, considers its exertion as a form of physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence, comparing its manifestation across different nations, and exploring criminal justice and social service responses for victims as well as programmes for offenders. As with much violence against women, the chapter notes that ‘legal change is not enough to alter attitudes and beliefs about domestic violence’ (p.174). In Chapter 7, the authors locate gendered victimisation within the contemporary technological world, examining violence exerted by cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and cyberharassment. The chapter explores the suicidal response of the victims of this form of violence, in response to gendered cyberbullying they received (p.190), and highlights ‘the ability of offenders to be anonymous’, with comments ‘spread fast and widely to others’ in this electronic, cyberjurisdiction (p.186). Central to the chapter, is the assumption that national and global collaboration regarding definition and legislative responses to cybervictimisation is necessary. Yet, in light of the chapter's note that ‘most cyberbullying perpetrators are girls’ (p.193), perhaps more space could be given to responses that do not criminalise young people, but, instead, emphasise the necessary social and community steps (p.194) that could be taken to address this issue. In the last third of the book, the authors move on to an interesting and expansive consideration of women's position as professionals within criminal justice, focusing on women working in policing (Chapter 8), in the courts as lawyers and jurists (Chapter 9), and within prison institutions (Chapter 10). Chapter 5 opens with a celebration of first responder police officers killed at the World Trade Centre on 11 September, before moving on to examining issues of institutional sexism and discrimination experienced by female police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department (p.199). The chapter gives an overview of the history of women in policing, and of contemporary comparative experiences of women police officers globally, where the position of gender, race, and sexual orientation are challenges emerging from police cultures. The chapter concludes that ‘there need to be organizational changes and attitudinal changes … for the goal of gender equity to be achieved in policing today’ (p.215). In Chapter 9, the history of women in the legal profession is explored. The chapter examines the gendered expectations and judgments that women face regarding their attire in court rooms of the United States, as well as the discrimination they face regarding equal payment (p.223). Women working in legal professions today still find ‘gains have been slowed by social and cultural views that women do not belong in a male-defined profession’, with women lawyers prevalent in ‘lower paid, public sector position … to balance family interest’ (p.231). As the chapter considers, perhaps if more women and ethnic minority jurists are appointed, judicial representation can become ‘more reflective of the diverse population of this nation’, garnering ‘the court’ with understanding of ‘the real-world implications of its rulings’ (p.236). The final substantive chapter of the book, Chapter 10, examines women working in the corrections profession, outlining the history and contemporary manifestation of women working in prisons. A number of issues are highlighted: women's safety in prisons; the crossing of professional boundaries through smuggling and sexual relations with prisoners; abuse and disrespect from prisoners; negative stereotypes regarding their suitability for prison work; sexual harassment from co-workers; blocked career advancement; stress and the imbalance of work and home life. As in earlier chapters, the exceptional is emphasised with case studies of violent attacks and sexual relations of women prison officers opening a chapter which asks: ‘are women working in correctional facilities somehow vulnerable to the manipulation of men?’ (p.244). In a sense, these depictions detract from the daily gendered and racial harassment and abuse women correctional officers endure within the institutional regime of the prison, often at the hands of their colleagues (pp.252–4). While the chapter concludes that women prison officers have ‘unique skills … that are both an asset for their male colleagues and for helping those in their communities’ (p.260), this is within the context of a section entitled ‘the effectiveness of women correctional workers’ (p.257). This panders to the idea that workplace effectiveness of women as distinct from men needs to be proven. Would we ask the same question of men? Finally, the authors conclude with Chapter 11, considering the ‘depictions of crime and victimisation presented’, and how they serve to ‘highlight what we know about gender and crime … from both a domestic and international point of view’ (p.269). The authors highlight the interrelationship of crime and victimisation, often cast as ‘distinct categories’, putting forward that feminist criminology can explain this intersection, created by the oppression of ‘social, cultural and legal institutions’ (p.274). As the textbook considers, while the law can be used to challenge injustices, equally it can ‘create or entrench disparity’ (p.275). While these are worthwhile criminological questions to raise, the content of the text did not quite rise to the challenge of fully examining these issues. Critical feminist perspectives were briefly touched upon throughout, but broadly, existing entrenched conceptions of crime and criminal justice were left unchallenged. Overall, this textbook provides an extensive overview of issues women face when they intersect with the criminal justice system, either as employees, victims or ‘offenders’. Methodologically, the range of interactive features provided both throughout the text and through a range of online facilities, produces a textbook which is pedagogically sound. However, while the book succeeds in its aims to provide ‘a cross-cultural perspective’, the international element of the text is delivered from a North American subjectivity, with other global experiences always the comparative object.
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